Towards quality and equitable education in South Africa: Unpacking the relationship between teacher factors, students’ socioeconomic background and mathematics achievements

Abstract

This study sought to understand the relationship between teacher factors, students’ socioeconomic background and mathematics achievements in South African context. This study contributes to educational quality and equity research in South Africa. Applying a two-level structural equation modelling technique, a sample of 334 mathematics teachers and 12,514 students from 292 schools in South Africa grade 9 (TIMSS) 2015 was used. The results revealed that teacher qualification and characteristics and instructional quality do not affect student mathematics achievement, once the student’s family SES and classroom SES compositions were taken into account. The classroom SES composition explained almost 80% of the cross-classroom differences in mathematics achievement differences in South Africa, indicating a high level of socio-economic segregation between classrooms in mathematics achievement. A tentative explanation might be that qualified and experienced teachers are more likely to be self-selected to schools and classes where the best students are. Moreover, since student’s achievement level is related to their socio-economic background. High achieving schools and classrooms very often are also with students of a higher level of SES. Thus, in South Africa, the teacher effects are confounded with SES composition effect. These results are discussed, and policy implications and practice recommendations of the findings are suggested.